


Difficulties In Cataloguing

by Orethon



Category: Call of Cthulhu (Roleplaying Game), Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, The Magnus Archives (Podcast), 機神咆吼デモンベイン | Kishin Houkou Demonbane
Genre: Anachronistic Clothes, Arachnophobia, Consent Issues, GIMME THE HOT GOSS BOOK DAUGHTER, He Has A Fang In He Got Dang Tongue, Hypnosis, Implied Additional Limbs, M/M, Mental Coercion, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sentient Book, Subtle shade thrown at Jonah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 09:06:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17322068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orethon/pseuds/Orethon
Summary: Enoch performs additional research, and is set in motion.





	Difficulties In Cataloguing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alias (anafabula)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anafabula/gifts).



**Radical Determinism:** Royal octavo. Bound in mahogany suede over beveled sandalwood boards, with Coptic sewing. Corner-pieces and clasps in burnished tantalum. Titled with glossy black resin, in narrow Foundational. Ring of eight trilliant cut emeralds set in center of front board. PP 784, un-paginated. Uniquely, is not divided into chapters, nor does it follow any logical order, addressing multiple assumed readers, never for longer than five pages at a time. Rather than any author credit or introductions, it simply introduces the book to a number of presumed readers, including the previous owner, one Amelia Scarboro. Possesses eight in-sewn bookmarks, four of red silk, and four of black and white horizontally striped chiffon. Pages, despite no quantifiable residue, maintain an indelible “sticky” texture.

 

* * *

 

“Say, tell me a story about Dad that he wouldn't share with me.” Quo is irrepressible, and exactly the sort that makes Celia waver between endeared and irritated. But, nevertheless, sharing information, especially stories about others, is a family tradition.

“Well, when we were cataloging books for Laguna, he found a book somewhat like yourself,” she begins.

 

* * *

 

Enoch was young, then, his hair still a deep black, wild with curls and inattention. He usually wore his favored indigo waistcoat and black trousers, and disregarded traditional garb. This annoyed his family, of course, but he had left them in England, and so had little concern for them. He was going through a crate from the Church of the Silken Grail, after they had been publicized in the tabloids and had to go into hiding. He found a book, and took it home with him, claiming he needed to do 'additional study' on it before it could be cataloged.

 

_You are walking down a path, and a stray line of web brushes your cheek and breaks._

 

Alone in his home with the book, he struggled to control his breath, staring into the list of names scrawled on the first pages. At his name, between Conleth B and Cyrus A S. It could be another Enoch L, but it wasn't. He knew it wasn't, because it was in his own hand. The curve of the 'L' was far too reminiscent of a noose, now, the 'o' a mocking eye staring into his soul. Radical Determinism, based on any sort of dating, had to be at least a hundred years old. Older than him, than even his own last name.

 

_But it has not broken. It has only allowed you to believe that._

 

He turns the first pages, and they stick to his fingers, pulling the book open a few dozen pages in. **Hello Enoch. I'm sure you don't want to believe that you are in the situation you now find yourself in. You are currently 20 years old. You are a Libra. Your father is disappointed in your disdain for your religion. The year is 1836, but you won't be there for much longer. But that can't convince you yet. That will simply be something to be remembered, when it is time.**

 

_You brush it away, and it clings to your hand._

 

'Time for what?' he thinks, to himself. **For it to be a different time, another place. You will take me there. Not yet, of course, but sooner than you would believe.** Books are supposed to be read, not to read the reader. **Supposed to is such a prescriptivist thought, Enoch. It does not suit you. Alas, it is too late not to have it.**

 

_When you turn your head to see, it begins to wrap around you._

 

He reaches out to flip to another page, a less mocking passage, and the last thing his eyes catch on as the tacky pages turn is **You'll be turning the page now.**

 

_You do not feel it, yet, but it is already too late._

 

**I have not gone away, Enoch. The whole book is mine, but some parts are for you.**

 

_You turn to return to your walk, and those strands begin to tighten._

 

He tries to walk away, but his curiosity is stronger than his fear. What can a book do, after all? Disturb? He is not an unstable man. He can handle this. So he returns to his reading. The pages turn under his hands, always referring to him by name, always seeming to be speaking to him.

 

_Breathing is hard. Movement is a struggle. Resistance is an illusion._

 

 **It occurs now, to you, to wonder who wrote this book. You needn't bother check, there is no author credit.** He checks anyway, and the book is proved correct, again. He turns back, somehow effortlessly, to the same page and the book continues. **You do many needless things, Enoch. But that's okay, I forgive you. To satisfy your curiosity, there is no author credit because the author was merely a series of puppets. But then, that's not particularly unique.**

 

_When you arrive at your destination, the spider is already there._

 

Desperate for a break from the oddity, he turns the page again, and finds himself reading a passage not addressed to him, for once. **At the outset of all events, all energy and mass was set in motion in a particular way. The so-called 'action' of any individual is merely their sum response to stimuli. Those stimuli, and the conditions surrounding them, are another response.**

 

_The first strand distracted you from the countless already pulling you like a puppet._

 

**This pattern continues indefinitely, back to the aforementioned outset. The end result can be predicted, extrapolated and isolated in much the same way as any prior result. There is only the past and the present, for the distinction between before and after experience is meaningless except for the order of cause and effect, as it is equally set in stone. An individual with sufficient knowledge of all past events, all momentum, and the laws governing them, can determine any future event.**

 

_You cannot move on your own impetus anymore, cocooned in the momentum of inevitability._

 

**Such an individual is forced to effectively witness their life as a bystander, knowing from that point in the present that they come to this understanding, that everything they do is merely a reflex. Knowing that knowing this does not save them.**

 

_You cannot blink. The spider leisurely saunters from its nest._

 

**ENOCH. LIFT ME AND DROP ME.**

He does, and a small skeleton key with bismuth swirls and cruel, sharp teeth drops onto his desk, skittering out of a hidden recess of the book.

 

_It crawls upon your face, and, seeing the venom on its fangs, you welcome the bite._

 

 **AGAIN.** He repeats the action, and the book falls open to the very center, revealing a lock, styled like an eye, the pupil the keyhole. Enoch picks up the key, wondering what could possibly be opened.

 

_It knew you always would._

 

His shaking hand brings the key to the lock, gingerly fitting it in. His eyes find another passage, faint but undeniable. Truly undeniable. **TURN THE KEY.**

 

_You turn the key._

 

The key turns 90 degrees and stops, caught on something. He applies more pressure, and the edge of the key cuts into his thumb, blood dripping down it and into the lock. The key turns freely, then vanishes, along with the book. No, the book does not vanish. It changes. A boy, in alien garb, sits before him, lounging on his desk. Enoch's hand is the on the stranger's bare thigh, inches above the hem of his striped stocking. The enigmatic, hypnotic youth wore more scarves than anything else – a quartet of bands of red silk, woven around his neck and draping down the bronze skin of his chest and the white, loosely knit strands of what could only be called a shirt. His gloves, with dark gray and black stripes, rose nearly to his shoulders, but left his hands, save his thumbs, bare, and his stockings, of the same material and pattern, terminated nearly halfway up his thighs. A pair of absurdly short crimson small-clothes, almost without legs at all, were all that maintained his modesty.

“Ahh, that's better. Greetings and salutations, friend of mine,” his voice was mellifluous, slipping between his thin red lips and disconcertingly sharp teeth. Enoch's glare did not linger long on the intruder's mouth, but were captured by the beryl glint of his eyes. Steel glared into emerald, and found depths there not heretofore known. A sinuous infatuation seemed to leak from that gaze, infecting Enoch, kindling a fire, a hunger he had never had cause to consider before.

“Just who or what are you?” Enoch is still himself enough to ask the question, and doesn't realize until the answer comes from less than an inch's distance from his ear that the oddity has moved.

“I'm the book of the chalice aconitum, of Uttu, of Indra's net. You can call me... Istos.” The heat of Istos's breath in Enoch's ear is distracting, but his mind works quickly, parsing pieces of history, mythology, theoretical occultism – forming an idea of the meaning of this introduction. The shape is there, like a hollow stabilimentum – which itself is a taunting hint.

Pain rouses him from this line of thought, brings his focus back to his naked body. His naked body? Yes, he was already naked. He blinks, his attention divided between the wet, hot, sharp sting in his outer ear, and his sudden nudity. No, not sudden, he vaguely remembers echoes of disrobing, of direction and assistance, his fumbling hands and trembling breath, guided by – yes, by Istos's own hands. His wrists are warm, despite the surprising lack of clothes. He looks down, pulling his ear from between Istos's teeth, and sees silken scarves tied to his wrists and ankles, leading back to behind him, to the source of the warmth, the comfort and temptation. He tries not to take a step back, into that strange entity's embrace, but that is no longer his decision to make. Or was it always already never his decision? Yes, he had read something about that. Something... about... momentum.

Once again, physical sensation pulls him away from thought, more immediately this time. Istos's hands trace across his chest and abdomen, their unnaturally pointed nails dragging across his skin like tiny knives, leaving red trails. It is painful. It is joyful. It is inevitable. Istos's left hand traces a path upwards, towards Enoch's nipples, and the other moves downward, to his throbbing erection. Enoch does not know how long he has been aroused for. How long the too smooth, too sharp hands have teased and tickled him, how many hands there even are. Suction at his neck, and the gentle grating of fang-like teeth against the tautened skin. He can feel the alien textures of Istos's clothing against his back, like glass and wire, smooth and cool, patches of contrast from Istos's feverish heat. He can also feel Istos's erection pressing against the small of his back through those strange clothes. He wants to see it, but cannot turn, cannot move.

The gentle scratch up the base of his cock makes him shiver against the invisible bonds that do not hold him, but restrain him nonetheless. Istos runs a finger up his shaft, two down, three up, one down, in a hypnotic pattern that lulls his conscious mind into a haze of desire and compliance, and he is not surprised to find himself in his bed, straddled by the boy. He vaguely recalls how he got there, but that's not important. What is important is the curve of Istos's ass against his cock, the tantalizing texture of those too-revealing clothes that now hide far too much for his desires. Enoch isn't tied to his bed, but he does not have to be. He is paralyzed by background thoughts of particles, momentum, and entanglement. He is paralyzed by his alien desire for the alien figure grinding against him.

Istos stops his gyrations, sitting up and moving away from Enoch. Enoch feels rising panic, until Istos settles back down, his cheek against his engorged cock. Istos grins, knowing Enoch's desire and fear, aware of every detail of the complex ballet they weave in his web. Enoch sees Istos's pointed teeth again, and wonders how much it would hurt to be bit there. How cruel his captor could be. Istos's mouth opens, his tongue sliding out of his mouth, revealing a pointed, chitinous tip, sharp and grooved. Istos licks his cock, from the base to the head, angling the strange fang just so that it only traces a path rather than puncturing or cutting, and the hot wetness of his saliva against the cold, dry air, and the roughness of his tongue contrasting the slickness of the fang is engrossing. A puff of breath, chilly to the now-dampened parts of his cock and warm against the rest, brings a shiver to Enoch's spine, and his hips twitch slightly, involuntarily.

“You want me,” Istos whispers.

It is not a question, but Enoch answers by nodding nonetheless.

“You shall be my arms and legs, and deliver me to my destination. It will be dangerous, but I will lend you my strength.”

Enoch gives another acknowledgment of the future as divulged to him by this book. He cannot help it. Even were the compulsion not there – if the compulsion was a compulsion after all – he would acquiesce, if only to learn more about this strange entity. As it is now, he is hot with desire for Istos, and can hardly imagine denying him anything.

Istos smiles, and another shiver runs up Enoch's spine. It is not a friendly smile, but a predator showing their fangs. A cat, perhaps, playing with a favorite toy. Istos kisses the head of his cock, which, in this state, is nearly enough to bring him over the edge. Nearly, but not actually. Istos's lips part, sucking Enoch's shaft into his mouth, covering it with warmth and wetness, the stinger-like tip of his tongue swirling across it with frightful abandon, but never actually puncturing it. Enoch's hips buck in earnest now, thrusting into Istos's mouth, unable to hold back, even in fear of that strange tongue. He feels his cock push past the back of Istos's throat, vanishing entirely into the boy's mouth, enveloped and cocooned. He does not know how long this goes on, Istos's fingers wrapped around the base of his shaft tightly enough to prevent release. He does not care. When Istos lifts his head again, letting Enoch's cock back out into the air, Enoch moans, hungry for more. Istos grins, crawling up to lay atop Enoch, holding his shaft between his bare thighs, and rests his cheek against Enoch's.

“Kiss me.” It is a command. Enoch does not even think to disobey, does not question his sudden release from his mental bondage, does not question being given a chance to refuse. He clasps Istos's head in his hands and lifts it just far enough away to bring their lips together, their saliva mixing. Istos tastes of pine, filling his mouth. Enoch pushes his tongue into Istos's mouth, fear crushed into the ground by desire, and savors the smoothness of his teeth, running his tongue across each, as though he hopes to memorize every shape, every curve and point, to find every secret. Istos, for his part, gently sucks at Enoch's tongue, and traces his own against it, guiding it to all the places Enoch seeks to taste. Minutes pass, turn to hours, perhaps, and, as the kiss begins to end, Istos jabs the tip of his tongue into Enoch's. Blood spurts, venom pumps, and Enoch's release finally comes. His come sprays into the air, spattering the fabric of Istos's stockings, like beads of dew on a spider's web. Istos hungrily swallows the blood as Enoch's consciousness fades, lulled by the narcotic venom. The pact is sealed.

When Enoch awakes, he is alone in bed, and the book sits where he had set it, open to the pages split across the lock, the key sitting beside it.

**You will take me to Celaeno, my newest “Master,” Enoch. My key shall open the door, in your library, that we may arrive at my chosen home.**

Enoch knows the events of the night were as true as the words he now reads. He closes the book, and pockets the key. He does not know what Celaeno is, but he knows how to get there.

 

* * *

 

“And, of course, he dragged me into it as well,” Celia finishes, shaking her head and chuckling, “Luckily for him. And we met someone else there, too, but that's another story, for another day.”

Quo is blushing, shocked, for once, into silence, if briefly. When she speaks, her voice is quiet enough that Celia has to listen, rather than simply hear, “I see why he wouldn't tell me that sort of story. It's rather improper, don't you think?”  
Celia just laughs.

 

 

 


End file.
